This is an important week. We’re approaching the second anniversary of the Gaza onslaught, and some day it will be recorded that the Gaza onslaught changed everything.
It’s important to me personally, too, because I’m coming up on five years of this site, and in our fundraiser I’ve talked to a lot of the donors, by email, and gotten a real sense that the American conversation is changing.
The following note should be deeply inspiring to anyone who comes to this site. It’s from an American writer who doesn’t want to give her name, but says she reads important work here. When I read a testimony like this, I feel great about all the hours people have devoted to building this site, and also very optimistic that if we keep at it, other good, thoughtful Americans will catch a clue:
I see my own experience reflected in many of the personal stories that get posted. Until I visited the West Bank, I was as blind as the average left-of-center American. I had been to Eilat, Jerusalem and Haifa for work. And though I didn’t realize it at the time, I had drunk the Israeli kool-aid. I thought I knew who was right and who was wrong. And then I spent a week in Ramallah and Bethlehem and realized that I had been utterly blind. It’s so frustrating (as you know), because it’s so hard to get the point across to people who haven’t been through a checkpoint, who haven’t met science and engineering professors who have to live apart from their families because they can’t get from Bethlehem to Ramallah–which should be an easy commute, by bike even! Heck, their families can’t even leave Bethlehem without permission from the Israeli army! No one who lives there can. I had no idea. “Freedom of movement” is such a stupid, abstract term. Anyway, you can see why I appreciate what you’re doing.
